Saudi Crown Prince greets released Qatar coup plotters 2, June 2010

In case there was any lingering doubt that Saudi Arabia was behind the coup in 1996 to unseat the Qatari Emir Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani, it is now gone. The Saudi Crown Prince, the man nominally in line to the Saudi throne, received the coup plotters who were released from Qatari jail last week at the request of the Saudi King.

Arab news reports that the convicted plotters were received at the Crown Prince’s palace in Jeddah. The coup plotters, members of the Al Ghafran branch of the Al Murrah tribe, spent 15 years in Doha’s central jail.

Nearly a decade after their failed coup in 2005 between 5 to 6 thousand members of the Al Ghafran tribe were stripped of their Qatari nationality and forced to rely on Saudi Arabia for help. Reports vary, with some suggesting that the removal of an Al Thani who had granted them some kind of ‘special dispensation’ was the reason whilst others cite lingering anger of the 1996 coup or even a mooted 2002 coup as the trigger for their deportation. I believe that they were, however, re-issued their Qatari ID at a later date.